So what is police going to do about all this violent crime down south? As you have seen, it is a mix of shootings, murders, aggravated burglaries, Chinese shop robberies and not to mention vehicular fires. And these crimes are mostly carried out by Belize city criminals trying to escape police pressure. Well, Commander of Operations Sr. Supt. Marco Vidal who was also at this morning's press conference says the police are already on the ground in the south and they have a strategy in place to address the crime situation.
Sr. Supt Marco Vidal, Commander - Operations
"Currently as we speak we have the special patrol unit along with the special branch along with the local investigators in Punta Gorda and we are targeting the persons who we suspect are involved in the other criminal activities as you mentioned as the Senior Superintendent mentioned just now that we suspect that there was some level of inter gang rivalry and for that purpose we are targeting some persons, as a matter of a fact we have so far targeted over 35 persons and some of whom are gang elements from Belize City who are in the Punta Gorda area."
Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"So it is a situation where city gang operatives or criminals are moving about because there is a tight police presence in the city. Is that what is happening?"
Sr. Supt Marco Vidal
"Right we want to tend to believe that that is the case that the operations in Belize City are having these elements move into other areas and we are seeing that to some level in the Punta Gorda area and other areas like the Hopkins incident for example where the suspects are from Belize City gang elements so yes we are seeing this happening."
Courtney Weatherburne:
"Apart from PG there were several other gang related incidents up north as well so they are not only moving to PG but also going to the north and other areas."
Sr. Supt Marco Vidal
"Yes that is correct, we have noted the increase of robberies in the north specifically Corozal and again we have operations ongoing there as well."
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